Saturday, April 26, 2008

Get a Life, You've Got Too Much Time on Your Hands

There are some things that I hear people say that make me cringe. One is "Get a life." Another is "Someone has too much time on their hands." To say either seems way way way too judgemental to my ears. Like suppose someone has a hobby that they obviously enjoy, that they put time and effort into. What sort of brain dead moron would besmirch someone's creativity by telling them they need to get a life? Or that they obviously have too much time on their hands?

It has been my observation that the type person who makes these type remarks is a person of very little accomplishment. They usually work at some menial job, or are unemployed, are poorly educated and no matter how hard you look you can not see any thing that they do, have done, are doing or can do. And even with a gun to their head they would be unable to do the very thing they are denigrating.

They are usually empty ciphers and at their core they are extremely jealous of anyone who can actually do anything.

Unfortunately, for me, I have relatives who fit this mold. Fortunately for me, I live thousands of miles from them, with my only contact usually being by phone. And even then, out of the blue, in regards to some erstwhile effort on my part, I will hear that I obviously have too much time on my hands. This from one who hasn't spent time with me in years and has no clue what I do.

I remember another time, I was up in Washington. I got a call telling me the mountain was out. In Washington that means you can see Mount Rainier. So, I took my video camera and walked down to the lake and took some video of the mountain. I stuck the video on my computer and in about 2 minutes I'd made a little movie.

When my relative got home I showed the movie. My relative whacked me on the head and said, "I thought you were supposed to be working, not wasting time on stuff like this. You've got too much time on your hands."

I said I did not realize you'd made videos and knew how much time they took.

Two days later we were with our favorite Aunt and suddenly the video I made had become valuable and this ill-mannered, obnoxious relative of mine asked me to show our Aunt the video that I'd apparently wasted time on due to my need to get a life and my problem with having too much time on my hands.